The charge stemmed from two faxes Zheng was alleged to have sent to the New York-based organisation Human Rights in China concerning workers' protests.
Zheng Enchong had advised more than 500 families displaced by Shanghai's urban redevelopment projects on their rights to fair compensation.
In 2001, the Shanghai Judicial Bureau refused to renew his lawyer's licence[1] and he was detained in June 2003, days after a group of evicted residents he had advised appeared in court attempting to sue the authorities for adequate compensation, alleging collusion between officials and a wealthy property developer.
Zheng Enchong was later charged and sentenced to three years in prison for "supplying state secrets to foreign entities" in connection with faxes he sent to Human Rights in China, an NGO based in New York.
A lasting effect of his conviction has been a reported decrease in the number of lawyers in Shanghai willing to "risk" defending people's rights to housing for fear of reprisals.